The Excitement of the Unexpected

I have always thought that it is a good idea to get out of our comfort zone every now and then. The longer we have a routine, the more difficult it becomes to break Some might think that there is no need to change or challenge themselves, but I believe that if you do it, you grow, learn and find out things about yourself. When we decided to take this trip, I didn’t even know where to start. I just knew that I had to find a course, however, I’d had very bad experiences with language courses. Not everybody is good at languages. Lots of times people decide to take language lessons for work or personal reasons. If you ever have, you know that it can be a very frustrating process. Language pedagogy, just like education in general, got stuck in the last century and hasn’t evolved. Most well-known language schools have the exact same class structure based on a level scale and focused on passing tests. Whether you are trying to learn English, German, French or Chinese, it`s all the same. And I speak from experience; I have taken classes in all those languages. But, is that system really practical? Most of the time, there are people with all different levels in one class and the ones who don’t know anything about grammar in their own language (and on top of that, don’t really like it) suffer.

It is tough to find time to learn for fun. We live in a world where most people end up doing things because “they have to,” which makes the process much harder. I love languages; I am passionate about correct grammar (and am still learning about it). I understand that to acquire a language, most of the work needs to be done individually. But people get to language classes without realizing this. They expect to walk out of an intermediate level course, where they go three hours a week, speaking and understanding the language. If, on top of that, they are learning because they “have to,” that is a recipe for disaster.

I spent hours upon hours trying to find something different. It is not that easy to make the decision to spend a couple of months in another country solely to study the language and culture, so I really wanted to make sure I found something that would meet my expectations and help with my goals. And I did. I found a school that offers French classes to interpreters. There are courses throughout the year, but I couldn’t make it to those. That is why I will take individual lessons with the teacher. To bolster the experience, we are also going to live with someone who only speaks French and who will spend time with us. I don’t know if my expectations will be met; the only thing I know is that I got out of my comfort zone once again and the excitement of the unexpected fulfills me.